Hi Daphne
It would be great to see user figures from a website with vs. without
registration, but failing that I'll just offer some personal experience:
1. As a user, there's nothing more frustrating than a registration
barrier. I'll do anything to avoid it, particularly if registration doesn't
seem necessary for the functioning of the website.
2. There is evidence that many think this way - look at the
popularity of bugmenot (www.bugmenot.com). Or the prevalence of
obviously bogus user names (Mickey Mouse etc) in registration
logs.
3. There's another way of harvesting user profiles - using compact
online surveys such as Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com).
I know that overlong surveys don't work, but has anyone in the
museum/culture sector had good
results from short, straightforward surveys of this type?
Mark
On 6 Mar 2006, at 16:31, CHARLES, Daphne wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
>
>
> Along with the desire to reach new audiences comes the requirement to
> demonstrate your success by producing statistics which profile your
> customers. Many people would say that compulsory registration is the
> only way to achieve this. Others are of the opinion that the hassle
> of registering deters customers from using your website, and that
> possibly those elusive "hard to reach" customers are the very ones
> most alienated by this process.
>
>
>
> I'd like to invite general debate on this topic. It would be
> particularly helpful if anyone was prepared to share the results of
> their own experience in this area, but I'd be happy to hear off-list
> if it is sensitive information.
>
>
>
> Best Regards
>
>
>
> Daphne Charles
> Development Team Leader (Web)
> English Heritage
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